In the
natural course of events, before many years Delight would be deprived
of her protectors and be left alone in the great world to fend for
herself. She was well able to do so, for she was resourceful and
capable and would never be forced to marry for a home as was many a
lonely woman. Nor would she ever come to want; the village would see
to that. Notwithstanding this certainty, however, he could not bear to
think of a time when there would be no one to stand between her and the
harsher side of life; no man who would count the championship a
privilege, an honor, his dearest duty.
Wilton had never offered a husband of the type pictured in Willie's
mind. The hamlet could boast of but few young men, and the greater
part of those who lingered within its borders had done so because they
lacked the ambition and initiative to hew out for themselves elsewhere
broader fields of activity. Those of ability had gravitated to the
colleges, the business schools, or gone to test their strength in the
city's marts of commerce. Who could blame them for not resting content
with baiting lobster pots and dredging for scallops? Were he a young
man with his path untrodden before him he would have been one of the
first to do the same, Willie confessed.
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